The request for funding goes before the Packard board on Dec. 5,
and the decision will made by mid-December. The foundation has been
meeting with local nonprofits for the past six to nine months, said
Byrne.
HOLLISTER
San Benito County’s Community Foundation has requested funding help from the Packard Foundation to expand philanthropic activities in the area.
The Community Foundation has requested funding for three different purposes. The first is to re-grant funding of county nonprofits for 2009. The second is to fund an educational program to help nonprofits build their capacities to make them more active in the community. The third, meanwhile, is to increase the capacity of Community Foundation itself, said Executive Director Gary Byrne.
The Los Altos-based philanthropic organization, created in 1964, has a grant-allocating budget of about $300 million for 2008, according to its Web site.
San Benito County YMCA Executive Director Rochelle Callis said talks with Packard “sound very positive.”
“We are really blessed that we are a community that they have honed in on.”
Byrne said the potential is “extremely important” because it would be the first time Packard expands to include San Benito County. He added that once the foundation establishes a tie with a group, “the relationships have been long lasting” and have “had a profound effect on the nonprofit community.”
The foundation has been meeting with local nonprofits for the past six to nine months, said Byrne.
One group in the county already has received money from the Packard Foundation. Community Pantry was facing an emergency financial situation, and Packard stepped in and gave a Good Samaritan grant of $25,000 about two weeks ago.
Mary Anne Hughes, executive director of San Benito County’s Community Pantry, said the foundation normally doesn’t give money to such pantries, but with help from a group such as Packard, the local group could achieve one of its goals of actually becoming a food bank.
Hughes said a grant from the Packard Foundation offers “a huge advantage for us so we can expand our services.” Another goal Community Pantry would like to achieve is purchasing a new building, while the group currently rents space for its operation. Funds also would go to relieve Second Harvest of Watsonville of its assistance in Hollister, she noted.
Callis from the YMCA said that even though the decision hasn’t been made, “their generosity will impact our community at many different levels with many different organizations.”
The Packard Foundation’s CEO and president Carol Lawson spoke in Hollister at the National Philanthropy Day luncheon at San Juan Oaks Golf Club. Afterward, homeless task force Shelter Manager Cindy Parr spoke with Lawson and told her how the homeless shelter lost out on federal funds because there was no other backing in the past. With a grant from Packard, Parr said it should help the group in applying for other state and federal grants.
“If we were able to use their name, to say the Packard Foundation is one of our funders, it would help us with other grants,” Parr said.
Hughes agreed with Parr. “The other advantage to having Packard becoming interested in our pantry is that when you are applying for other funding and you have the Packard Foundation, you seem a little easier to deal with.”
